New York City Deputy Police Commissioner John A. Leach (right) watches as Prohibition agents pour illegal liquor into a sewer in 1921.

The Puritans arrived in Boston in 1630 on a ship that carried plenty of beer—and 10,000 gallons of wine.

Hard drinking is a tradition that came over on the Mayflower. 400 years later we’re still struggling to find a balance between revelry and righteousness

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When the news arrived from Utah, cannons boomed in New Orleans, sirens howled in San Francisco, boats in New York harbor blasted their foghorns and the finance committee of the Chicago City Council adjourned to a tavern so the pols could quaff a snort of legal booze for the first time in 13 years, 10 months, 18 days, 7 hours and 27 minutes.

It was Dec. 5, 1933—75 years ago this fall—and the news that sparked the momentous national celebration was the long-awaited passage of an amendment to the United States Constitution: Utah voted to become the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment, which repealed the 18th Amendment, which had banned the production and sale of alcoholic beverages across the land since 1920.

“Prohibition is dead!” an electric sign in Times Square announced, and a mob of 10,000 roared its approval. “A thousand bartenders reached in unison for the Scotch, rye or gin,” wrote reporter John Lardner, “and 50,000 customers bumped elbows for the honor of absorbing the first legal drink.”

In Manhattan, a joyous crowd celebrated by lynching an effigy of “Old Man Prohibition” from a flagpole on Broadway. In Chicago’s Drake Hotel, a scantily clad woman popped out of a 10-foot-tall champagne glass as drinkers cheered. In Boston, revelers wandered from saloon to saloon, singing off-key renditions of old drinking songs or engaging in what the Boston Globe described as “sidewalk displays of wrestling ability and hog-calling.”

But revelry did not rule everywhere. In many places, including Georgia, Kentucky and Washington, D.C., booze was still banned by state or local laws, which tended to throw a wet blanket on the festivities. In Atlanta, the celebration of Prohibition’s demise was not nearly as spirited as the celebration of its birth nearly 14 years earlier, when, the Atlanta Constitution reported, “The Anti-Saloon League, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and other dry organizations paraded on Peachtree to Five Points, where old John Barleycorn was burned in effigy.”

Today, the long, bitter conflict between “dry” and “wet” Americans seems quaint and absurd, a strange tale from ancient history. But that colorful clash illustrates an enduring aspect of American life, a conflict between two sides of our national personality—the secular “pursuit of happiness” versus the religious pursuit of righteousness. America’s epic battle over alcohol is one of the divisive cultural issues that have periodically roiled American politics, like slavery and segregation or the more recent controversies over gay rights and abortion.

Getting drunk, plastered, loaded, tanked, sloshed, smashed, stewed and stoned is an old American tradition. But so is preaching fiery sermons against “demon rum,” attacking saloons with hatchets and enacting laws to prevent your neighbors from getting drunk, plastered, sloshed, smashed, stewed and stoned.

The story of alcohol in America is an inspiring tale of courageous men and women who ventured across stormy seas, conquered a teeming wilderness, created a great nation and built an awesome industrial colossus—and did it all while knocking back heroic quantities of strong liquids.

Booze came to America aboard Mayflower. Like most British ships in 1620, Mayflower carried more beer than water. One reason was that beer was safer than water, which was often contaminated with noxious wastes. Another reason was that passengers preferred to pass the tedious nine-week voyage in a pleasant beer buzz.

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